I guess I should post something...

I've had lots of ideas for posts the past week but everytime I sit down to write them something distracts me. I've got some "interesting" posts, or at least I think so, that I hope to most in the next few weeks.

Today I went for my first jury duty summons. I honestly didn't think much of it. So much that I had three meetings scheduled for work that I had to wind up postponing once I realized late Saturday evening that I would possibly not be there. I had to call in Friday afternoon to see if I actually had to go and was informed "the case" was still on. At that point it peaked my curiousity and sounded like maybe something important. Showed up at 8:15 today and found 2 people from my church were in the jury pool. After about an hour we were escorted to the court room and were told we were there for a MURDER TRIAL! I had absolutely no idea. I was number 54 so I understood my chances of being selected weren't good so I wasn't too disapointed when I was let go at around 2:15. One member from my church is on the jury and the other one was let go with me. I had mixed feelings about being on it. It was going to last all week and I have a lot going on at work but on the other hand I've always wanted to be on a jury and then a murder trial on top of that. Both of the attorneys did tell us this would truly be a CSI type case with lots of forensic evidence. Sounded cool but I'm not totally upset I didn't get on it. Lots of people encouraged me to try and get out of it and that was a bit dissapointing to me. It's hard to give up time but hey it's our civic duty. I sure hope if I was ever on trial people would show up for my jury. The funniest moment was when the prosecutor asked if anyone had a violent crime committed against them or a family member. A lady responded that someone tried to kill her TREE, yes her tree. They shot at it twice. The entire courtroom tried to hide their laughter but it was obvious everyone was laughing.

I started my weight loss goal last week to lose 32 lbs by Christmas. I'm down 2 so far so I'm happy with that. 30 more to go!

Until later...

Miscellaneous Ramblings...

Lots of stuff has gone on since my last post so I'll recap with some miscellaneous ramblings.

We opened our new santuary at church today. It's pretty awesome. We had close to 300 people at church today and we filled up the place. Pretty soon the youth get to move into the old santuary and we are super pumped about that. It will be such a blessing to have a bigger spot for Wednesday nights.

Malachi went to a bunch of doctors last week. 3 appointments in two days. Nothing new, more tests. This morning though he had the worst diaper I have ever experienced. It stunk up the whole house, was all over the crib and himself, and I am such a good dad I was the one who cleaned up the mess. Literally I almost threw up.

Put the contacts back in this morning. Way sooner than the doctor ordered but I'm young and healthy right? I'm sure the infection is gone, right? So far no redness. Tomorrow morning will be the test. Pray that they keep white and not red. I HATE wearing glasses.

Yes, I watched Michael Jackson's funeral on Tuesday. Actually watched part at work and then watched the rest taped that night at home. I have mixed views on the whole situation as far as making that big of deal out of someone and all the other stuff in the news. Bottom line, Michael Jackson was an extremely talented muscian, that can't be denied.

The all H20 is having mixed results. The one thing I am totally proud of though in the last three weeks I've had one diet coke and can proudly say I've broken the diet coke addiction. Drinking a lot of H20, lot of ice tea, and a few other low calories drinks, mainly Crystal Light.

Tomorrow I'm faithfully starting a new eating plan. I have a goal weight that I want to be at by December 31st. Probably around 30 lbs to lose, I'll do a weigh in tomorrow. I think I can do it and losing it that slowly is probably the best way to do it vs all real quick. I am running a 1/2 marathon again in October and plan to faithfully train for that so hopefully that helps as well. Still playing basketball on Monday nights and softball on Tuesday nights and that helps a lot. I really dreaded being 30, fat and bald. When I turned thirty I was overweight and balding. I can come to grips with being 30, going bald is not the end of the world, but I really want to lose some weight.

Leah talks to everyone. Today at church while waiting to get our food she pointed to an older gentleman and said "Your bald". I wanted to vanish. Then the other day at a resturant she pointed to a girl in a cowboy hat and said "Cowboy? Cowboy?" I'm sure she'll provide plenty of those moments.

Malachi is starting to get the hang of taking steps. He's not walking yet but has taken a step or two. I think in a week we'll be there.

Leah is ALMOST potty trained. Just one accident the past few days. I'll be glad when this stage is done.

I've gone back and forth on Sarah Palin. I've come to the conclusion that I can respect her decision and I think she might be a player on the national stage in 2012. I still think she's too polarizing to be the nominee but she will have a voice in the party. I almost think I would vote for her if I had to chose now.

Lots of rambling, maybe I'll be a more faithful blogger in the future, maybe not...

What's up Sarah Palin?

What is up with Sarah Palin announcing not only that she won't run for a second term as governor of Alaska, but also announcing that she is stepping down in three weeks? I've gone back and forth on Sarah Palin since she was announced as John McCain's running mate ten months agao. I remember watching her speech at the Republican National Convention and thinking, wow, we've got a winner here. The speech was truly awesome. Things went downhill after that for her. I blame most of that on McCain's campaign team, which at times appears it wanted to lose, constantly mismanage her and put her in situations she didn't need to be put in. After the election I wondered if she might have what it takes to run in 2012. At the time I really wanted her to run again but thought she probably was too far to the right to get the nomination. The past few months have been odd to say the least. She has become a polarizing face in politics, but isn't anyone who is anyone in politics now polarizing? People love her or hate her. That is clearly shown by her approval rating now being at 45% in Alaska which before she was announced as a vice presidential candidate was at 73%. Has she really changed her politics that much or do people just now see her differently after the election? She's been the focus of 15 ethics violations since the election. Most of the time I lean on the side of where there's smoke there's fire but since all 15 have been cleared I'm beginning to think it's just a witch hunt. She stated in her "resignation" speech that her and her husband had $500,000 in legal fees as a result of all the investigations. That would be hard to pay off with her salary of either $125,000 or $160,000 depending on who you believe. Either way it's hard to pay off that amount. I would also imagine after her and her family being smeared by the media during the election and since then maybe she just wants away from it all. Some sources report she's out of politics for good. If that's the case I respect her decision but at the same time am sad because even though I'm not sure she would have been my pick for the Republican nomination in 2012 she would have added a lot to the debate. If she does want to run in 2012 I'm curious as to her roadmap from here. My pick, by pick I mean I who I think will be on the ticket not necessarily my choice, for 2012 is Rommney if we are still in an economic crisis and if we're not still in the crisis Eric Cantor is my pick. I'm probably way off, but we'll start hearing about it before too long:)

Random Pictures

When it rains it pours...

Several weeks ago our study on Wednesday night youth class was on the book of Job. The lesson focused on just a few verses but after reading those verses I found myself almost reading the entire book. It's good stuff, Satan went after Job over and over and over again and through it all Job kept his faith in God and never gave in. I found it amazing the faith that Job kept and going through all that with his wife and friends turning on him I wonder if I was put in that same situation how I would react. That was the day before the Aviator gave us fits. While I am in no way comparing our situation to the one of Job's, he went through way worse stuff than we did, we have definitely had our share of troubles at times these past few weeks. During those times when I want to say, "Why God, why us?", I find myself thinking back to Job and his faith and it gives me much encouragement. Some might think of our problems as trivial but even the trivial things mount. First we had the Aviator issue which I've blogged on numerous times, then Malachi continues to have health issues which we now to go to a specialist in Kansas City this week to see, then the drama with our air conditioner on our vacation which led to a 15.5 hour marathon driving session with 3 adults and 2 kids, then I found out today I have a bad viral eye infection which I'll tell you more about in a bit, finally today when I was leaving the eye doctor the car wouldn't start! All it needed was a new battery but still one thing after another and believe me the $$'s are starting to add up for all of this. We now have the next three days with nothing to do except for church on Sunday so we are locking ourselves up at home and going to try to avoid any more trouble!

About the eye infection, I was/am an abuser of my contacts. Even after going to the doctor every year and getting the same lecture after lecture about how I would pay for this some day I continued to ignore the eye doctor. She would say over and over that if you abuse your eyes they will abuse you. I abused my eyes, the contacts I wore were for 30 day usage, meaning I could wear them 30 days straight without taking them out and after 30 days I put in a new pair. I would literally go months without taking them out. Last year I only got a sixth month refill and I still have some left. Today though was the day of reckoning for my eyes and I hope they don't win. About three weeks ago I started noticing redness in one eye. Whenever I would take out my contact and put in eye drops the redness went away and everything appeared ok. Then about two weeks ago I started getting red in both eyes and the redness would go from eye to eye and sometimes both and sometimes it would go away. It got much worse while we were on vacation so I decided I would go in for my annual exam and also get the infection taken care of. I woke up this morning at 8:40, after getting home around 1:30, and immediately called. They said if I was there by 9:20 they would see me. I made it and got in quickly. Got my regular exam taken care of then I got the low down on my infection. I have a viral infection of the cornea. The cornea is the clear dome over the colored part of your eye. There are not antibodies in the cornea so if you get an infection there it's very hard to fight on your own. On top of that when you have a viral infection medicine can't treat it so it makes it even worse. The antibodies on the white part of the eye move over to the cornea on a temporary basis to fight the infection. When you wear contacts those antibodies get very angry and swell up on the white part trying to get to the cornea. That's what causes the redness and also what casues the redness to go away when a person takes out their contacts. If you push this infection long enough the antibodies get all messed up, forget where they live, and you can also cause permanent scarring on the cornea, which basically means you have permanet scratches on your line of vision. She does not think that mine is to that point but mine is bad enough that we have to be extremely careful. She forbid me to put contacts in for 2 weeks and suggested longer. If you put the contact on and the infection isn't gone you have to go back to square one, which would mean another extended time without contacts. I am going to schedule follow ups every two weeks until I am cleared to put in contacts again. It's possible, not highly likely, but not highly unlikely either, that I have become a carrier of the virus which would make wearing contacts again very hard. I pray that this is not the case and that in two weeks I'm cleared up. Until then I'll be wearing glasses. Warning to all of you contact wearers though, I thought I was too tough to have any problems with not following the doctors orders but I was wrong. Take care of your eyes.